Recently I wrote about forming connections in your classroom as part of your approach to positive behaviour support. One way you can connect with your children is to make them feel like they’re part of your tribe and working together towards a common goal is a good way to create a sense of community.
I shared the picture below on my Facebook page this week and thought that a post about sharing responsibility in the classroom might be useful.
One way to share responsibility (not chores, we don’t want to put them off!) is to assign particular roles to individuals in the class. Examples of roles could be messenger, librarian, PE equipment or gardener.
When you have an individual responsible for a particular role, it puts a level of pressure on one child and it may be better to share the role with another pupil so that they can share the load.
Another way is to have a number of children responsible for a particular job, this helps to speed up tasks so it’s a good way to get books given out or to collect resources at the end of a lesson.
Some classes have roles where the responsibilities are moved around each week. This can make it difficult for you as you can’t remember who’s doing which job this week, so it may be better to assign the job for a longer period of time, perhaps a half term. As the roles are passed on, give the children an opportunity to show how it’s done, this will save you teaching individual skills and will build the self-esteem of the child who’s so good at their job that they’re able to teach someone how to do it.
All pupils, regardless of age or ability will be able to offer some form of support to the whole class effort, some children may have to have tasks adapted for them or to carry it out with a friend. It’s important that everyone gets to contribute in some way so that they feel like they’re a valued member of the tribe.
What responsibilities do you share in your classroom, share your ideas in the comments below.
Latest Posts:
Keeps Them Out Of Mischief 
One thought on “Sharing Classroom Responsibilities”